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Why Recruit in
China?
Are You Getting Your Fair Share of the Growing Chinese Student Market?
An IEF Education Foundation Special Report
Many of you are interested in recruiting students from China. We share your interests in this lucrative market. In fact, we think the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China will be the 21st Century's most important.
This view is shared by many others, both here and in China, as China joins The West in the war on terror, enters WTO, and prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
We invite you to consider joining us in China, at our Spring, 2002 American Education Fairs in Shanghai - China's largest city, and Nanjing - the higher education nexus of southern China. So much has changed in China, however, especially since the highly significant and symbolic events of 1999, that we thought you might enjoy an update on the student market condition.
Here are a few of the important facts, which you may examine in greater detail by clicking onto the following titles:
Some of the information you may already be aware of. Other details will amaze you - (or so we hope). Either way, the time for your school to establish its presence with East Asia's rising powers has arrived. Let IEF bring your institution's educational programs to the Chinese market this spring.
The IEF Education Foundation seeks your partnership in international student recruitment. We have over a decade of experience in East Asia, and operate American College Information Centers in Taipei, Taiwan & Shanghai, China. California based, with offices in Washington, D.C., it's our business to know East Asia. Register now for our American Education fairs.
China
Is The #1 Source For International Students in the United States
The Institute of International Education's recently released Open Doors Report of November 13th, 2001 stated:
"…for the third year in a row, China has led the growth of international student enrollment as the top sending country (up to 59,939)…Asian students comprise over one-half (51%) of all international enrollment (302,058, up 8%)…"
Of the over 550,000 non-U.S. students now enrolled in U.S. post-secondary institutions, over one in ten are from China. Of all nations, the U.S. is the leading destination for Chinese students. When surveyed on the #1 reason for going to the U.S. for their higher education, the top responses included: Quality of Instruction, Usefulness of the Degree, Ability to Apply Research, Experiencing America and Availability.
When Chinese students were asked what kept them from going to the United States, over 90% said they had never been asked. This single reason far outpaces money, visas and credentials. Yet, nearly 60,000 are here today. These are today's trend-setters, and tomorrow's decision makers. Their numbers and influence are growing.
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The Increase in Undergraduate Studies by Chinese Students
Finally, as the numbers of students from China studying in the U.S. increases, the biggest gains are being realized in the areas of undergraduate studies, contrary to the old notion of China being primarily a graduate student market.
IIE's Open Doors Report stated, "While numbers of international students increased by a total of 15% across every type of higher education institution since 1993, international student enrollment growth is particularly strong at U.S. community colleges, which showed an increase of 50% throughout the same period. In the past year alone, the number has risen more than 7% to 85,817 students."
Chinese students in particular are attracted by the affordability and class sizes offered via undergraduate studies in the U.S., and this wave will continue to build as more Chinese enjoy the benefits of two and four year institutions. Educators, now more than ever is the time to go to China. See how in the details that follow.
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Schools in China
Are Looking Toward Establishing Relationships With U.S. Schools
China's central
government has issued new policies to encourage its government
officials and employees to take English language training in
response to China's entrance into the World Trade Organization,
as well as for the Olympic Games coming in 2008. All English
speaking countries are taking this opportunity to enter the
Chinese market now.
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Relaxed Chinese Government Attitudes Toward International Education
China will soon offer tax incentives and preferential treatment to students studying overseas, encouraging them to join the increasing numbers who are returning home at the end of their studies. Under a new policy, students who return will be offered tax breaks and intellectual property protection on work developed in China. In the meantime, the decreasing percentage of students who remain overseas are being recognized as a valuable asset by a China preparing to host the Summer Olympics in 2008.
Very recently, Chinatopnews reported that the Chinese government is now encouraging overseas students to serve their post-WTO, pre-Olympics nation in various ways.
"…the new policy is meant to end the thinking that only those students who return to China are patriotic. They will win the respect, encouragement and rewards by the government for their contributions to China, whether they live at home or abroad, the policy states. According to the policy, students can serve the motherland via part-time jobs, cooperation in research, investment and founding new companies, human resources training, and acting as intermediates without having to live on the
mainland….
"It's a breakthrough in China's personnel managing system and its concept of talents," said Wang Enyong, a professor at the Beijing University specializing in human resources managing research."
IEF joins American schools in welcoming these moves, as they represent the first systematic regulation of rewards for overseas students. A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Personnel recently said, "The policy provides a more convenient and attractive environment for students studying abroad to serve their motherland."
The policy is also opening many doors to the future of international education, especially in the minds of China's 190 million member middle class.
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Bettering Relations Between the Peoples of the World's Most Influential Economies
Factoring in an average annual growth rate of 2.5% for the U.S., at current annual growth rates of between 7 and 9 percent a year, China's economy ($1.2 trillion - 2001) will match America's ($10 trillion - 2001) as early as 2025 and no later than 2034. If English is an important language today, imagine how much more important Chinese and English will be in a world dominated by these two markets?
Today's education entrepreneurs know this, and they are betting on the acceleration of a decades old trend toward better relations between China and the United States. There is no safer investment in the world's future, and none more significant for the safety and prosperity of mankind. From military exchanges to joint satellite launches, bio-medical research to agri-business, crude oil discovery to educational exchange, the level and pace of cooperation is accelerating. The world watches as the primacy of the Pacific Rim becomes the subtext of the 21st Century.
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The Improving Standard of Living in China
Renee Schoof of the Associated Press posted a story from Beijing on a returned Chinese by the name of Michael Cao, who was pulled home from a thriving daily life in New York City.
"Just as he felt he was hitting a glass ceiling at the Manhattan investment firm where he worked, Cao started to read about China's stunning economic transformation. "Here (in China) it's polluted, it's crowded, the living conditions are not good. So what? I can do what I want." People like Cao who return to China with advanced degrees from abroad are just the beginning of a reversal of a serious brain drain."
"Even though their numbers are small, they are becoming an important force for changing China and bringing the outside world closer to home. The returnees are a prestigious lot, including a vice president of elite Beijing University, senior researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and economists at the China Center for Economic Research who advise premier Zhu Rongji. Others with less influential positions exert a more subtle influence, bringing back experience with Western and personal freedoms.
Alexis de Tocqueville described an America in the middle of the 19th Century that promised greatness. He saw the rise of not only an economic giant, but an industrious sensibility, a good natured willingness to compete, and a pride in production coupled with strong family-centered values. These same factors are driving a new engine, across the Pacific. IEF is there to meet the market. Is your school?
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Post WTO China's Favorable Opportunities For Education
On March 8th, 2001, the Office of the Press Secretary of the White House heralded the U.S. - China
World Trade Organization (WTO) accession deal in uncharacteristically cheerful terms: "China's entry into the WTO will dramatically cut import barriers currently imposed on American products and services. This agreement locks in and expands our access to a market of over one billion people. China's economy is already among the world's largest and has expanded at the phenomenal annual rate of nearly 10% over the past 20 years. During this period, U.S. exports to China have grown from negligible levels to over $14
billion each year…China made significant, one-way market-opening concessions across virtually every economic sector…"
"China's people will have greater scope to live their lives as they see fit. In opening China's telecommunica-tions market, including to Internet and satellite services, the agreement will over time expose the Chinese people to information, ideas and debate from around the world. As China's people become more mobile, prosperous, and aware of alternative ways of life, they will seek greater say in the decisions that affect their lives…"
IEF concurs, with the sobering responsibility of knowing that educational exchange is paving the way. Very recently, the Shanghai Municipal Government forecast the fourteen top growth areas as a result of WTO admission of China (and Taiwan one day later). Number one on the list was 'Professional Services' which includes educational services. This is only the beginning.
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More
Visas Being Issued To Chinese Students by the U.S. Government
Currently, U.S. rules
call for granting student visas only to people likely to return
to China. With the growth in China's economic clout, and the
increasing rates of return by Chinese overseas scholars, the
numbers of visas issued by the U.S. State Department to Chinese
is on the rise.
China's Xinhua News
agency reports the number of students abroad returning to China
has increased by 13 percent annually on average in recent years.
Liu Baoying, a senior official from the Chinese Ministry of
Personnel, told Xinhua, "China will provide a more
comfortable and effective environment for them to serve the
country in various ways."
The United States
recently denied that it had adopted any 'get-tough policy' on
visas for Chinese citizens. State Department spokesman Philip
Reeker, at a press briefing in Washington, denied a New York
Times report that there had been a change of policy toward
China, adding (contrary to the report):
"There has been
absolutely no change in policies and procedures…Raw numbers of
both Chinese visa applicants and student visas issued to Chinese
citizens are in fact increasing. And the refusal rate to Chinese
student visa applicants actually dropped significantly over the
past two fiscal years." He said that in FY 2000, 21,586
student visas were issued to Chinese citizens, an increase of 33
percent over the 16,303 student visas issued to Chinese citizens
in the previous year. Reeker said that preliminary figures for
FY 2001 indicate another increase.
IEF salutes the U.S.
government's trend toward wider doors for Chinese students, and
encourages U.S. schools to join as partners in international
student recruitment in the number one market.
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